This invention relates generally to the use of focused acoustic energy in the generation of fluid droplets, and more particularly relates to acoustic ejection of fluid droplets from each of a plurality of reservoirs. The invention finds utility in the fields of inorganic, organic, and biomolecular chemistry. A particular focus of the invention is on the systematic generation of dense microarrays, including combinatorial libraries comprised of a plurality of combinatorial sites in the form of features on a substrate surface.
The discovery of novel materials having useful biological, chemical and/or physical properties often leads to emergence of useful products and technologies. Extensive research in recent years has focused on the development and implementation of new methods and systems for evaluating potentially useful chemical compounds. In the biomacromolecule arena, for example, much recent research has been devoted to potential methods for rapidly and accurately identifying the properties of various oligomers of specific monomer sequences, including ligand and receptor interactions, by screening high density arrays of biopolymers including nucleotidic, peptidic and saccharidic polymers.
For biological molecules, the complexity and variability of biological interactions and the physical interactions that determine, for example, protein conformation or structure other than primary structure, preclude predictability of biological, material, physical and/or chemical properties from theoretical considerations at this time. For non-biological materials, including bulk liquids and solids, despite much inquiry and vast advances in understanding, a theoretical framework permitting sufficiently accurate prediction de novo of composition, structure and synthetic preparation of novel materials is still lacking.
Consequently, the discovery of novel useful materials depends largely on the capacity to make and characterize new compositions of matter. Of the elements in the periodic table that can be used to make multi-elemental compounds, relatively few of the practically inexhaustible possible compounds have been made or characterized. A general need in the art consequently exists for a more systematic, efficient and economical method for synthesizing novel materials and screening them for useful properties. Further, a need exists for a flexible method to make compositions of matter of various material types and combinations of material types, including molecular materials, crystalline covalent and ionic materials, alloys, and combinations thereof such as crystalline ionic and alloy mixtures, or crystalline ionic and alloy layered materials.
The immune system is an example of systematic protein and nucleic acid macromolecular combinatorial chemistry that is performed in nature. Both the humoral and cell-mediated immune systems produce molecules having novel functions by generating vast libraries of molecules that are systematically screened for a desired property. For example, the humoral immune system is capable of determining which of 1012 B-lymphocyte clones that make different antibody molecules bind to a specific epitope or immunogenic locale, in order to find those clones that specifically bind various epitopes of an immunogen and stimulate their proliferation and maturation into plasma cells that make the antibodies. Because T cells, responsible for cell-mediated immunity, include regulatory classes of cells and killer T cells, and the regulatory T cell classes are also involved in controlling both the humoral and cellular response, more clones of T cells exist than of B cells, and must be screened and selected for appropriate immune response. Moreover, the embryological development of both T and B cells is a systematic and essentially combinatorial DNA splicing process for both heavy and light chains. See, e.g., Therapeutic Immunology, Eds. Austen et al. (Blackwell Science, Cambridge Mass., 1996).
Recently, the combinatorial prowess of the immune system has been harnessed to select for antibodies against small organic molecules such as haptens; some of these antibodies have been shown to have catalytic activity akin to enzymatic activity with the small organic molecules as substrate, termed xe2x80x9ccatalytic antibodiesxe2x80x9d (Hsieh et al. (1993) Science 260(5106):337-9). The proposed mechanism of catalytic antibodies is a distortion of the molecular conformation of the substrate towards the transition state for the reaction and additionally involves electrostatic stabilization. Synthesizing and screening large libraries of molecules has, not unexpectedly, also been employed for drug discovery. Proteins are known to form an induced fit for a bound molecule such as a substrate or ligand (Stryer, Biochemistry, 4th Ed. (1999) W. H. Freeman and Co., New York), with the bound molecule fitting into the site much like a hand fits into a glove, requiring some basic structure for the glove that is then shaped into the bound structure with the help of a substrate or ligand.
Geysen et al. (1987) J. Immun. Meth. 102:259-274 have developed a combinatorial peptide synthesis in parallel on rods or pins involving functionalizing the ends of polymeric rods to potentiate covalent attachment of a first amino acid, and sequentially immersing the ends in solutions of individual amino acids. In addition to the Geysen et al. method, techniques have recently been introduced for synthesizing large arrays of different peptides and other polymers on solid surfaces. Arrays may be readily appreciated as additionally being efficient screening tools. Miniaturization of arrays saves synthetic reagents and conserves sample, a useful improvement in both biological and non-biological contexts. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,700,637 and 6,054,270 to Southern et al., which describe a method for chemically synthesizing a high density array of oligonucleotides of chosen monomeric unit length within discrete cells or regions of a support material, wherein the method employs an inkjet printer to deposit individual monomers on the support. So far, however, miniaturized arrays have been costly to make and contain significant amounts of undesired products at sites where a desired product is made. Thus, even in the biological arena, where a given sample might be unique and therefore priceless, use of high density biomacromolecule microarrays has met resistance by the academic community as being too costly, as yet insufficiently reliable compared to arrays made by lab personnel.
Arrays of thousands or even millions of different compositions of the elements may be formed by such methods. Various solid phase microelectronic fabrication derived polymer synthetic techniques have been termed xe2x80x9cVery Large Scale Immobilized Polymer Synthesis,xe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cVLSIPSxe2x80x9d technology. Such methods have been successful in screening potential peptide and oligonucleotide ligands for determining relative binding affinity of the ligand for receptors.
The solid phase parallel, spatially directed synthetic techniques currently used to prepare combinatorial biomolecule libraries require stepwise, or sequential, coupling of monomers. U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,854 to Pirrung et al. describes synthesis of polypeptide arrays, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,744,305 to Fodor et al. describes an analogous method of synthesizing oligo- and poly-nucleotides in situ on a substrate by covalently bonding photoremovable groups to the surface of the substrate. Selected substrate surface locales are exposed to light to activate them, by use of a mask. An amino acid or nucleotide monomer with a photoremovable group is then attached to the activated region. The steps of activation and attachment are repeated to make polynucleotides and polypeptides of desired length and sequence. Other synthetic techniques, exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,700,637 and 6,054,270 to Southern et al., teach the use of inkjet printers, which are also substantially parallel synthesis because the synthetic pattern must be predefined prior to beginning to xe2x80x9cprintxe2x80x9d the pattern. These solid phase synthesis techniques, which involve the sequential coupling of building blocks (e.g., amino acids) to form the compounds of interest, cannot readily be used to prepare many inorganic and organic compounds.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,985,356 to Schultz et al. teaches combinatorial chemistry techniques in the field of materials science, providing methods and a device for synthesis and use of an array of diverse materials in predefined regions of a substrate. An array of different materials on a substrate is prepared by delivering components of various compositions of matter to predefined substrate surface locales. This synthetic technique permits many classes of materials to be made by systematic combinatorial methods. Examples of the types of materials include, but are not limited to, inorganic materials, including ionic and covalent crystalline materials, intermetallic materials, metal alloys and composite materials including ceramics. Such materials can be screened for useful bulk and surface properties as the synthesized array, for example, electrical properties, including super- and semi-conductivity, and thermal, mechanical, thermoelectric, optical, optoelectronic, fluorescent and/or biological properties, including immunogenicity.
Discovery and characterization of materials often requires combinatorial deposition onto substrates of thin films of precisely known chemical composition, concentration, stoichiometry, area and/or thickness. Devices and methods for making arrays of different materials, each with differing composition, concentration, stoichiometry and thin-layer thickness at known substrate locales, permitting systematic combinatorial array based synthesis and analysis that utilize thin layer deposition methods, are already known. Although existing thin-layer methods have effected the precision of reagent delivery required to make arrays of different materials, the predefinition required in these synthetic techniques is inflexible, and the techniques are slow and thus relatively costly. Additionally, thin-layer techniques are inherently less suited to creating experimental materials under conditions that deviate drastically from conditions that are thermodynamically reversible or nearly so. Thus, a need exists for more efficient and rapid delivery of precise amounts of reagents needed for materials array preparation, with more flexibility as to predetermination and conditions of formation than attainable by thin-layer methods.
In combinatorial synthesis of biomacromolecules, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,700,637 and 6,054,270 to Southern et al., as noted previously, describe a method for generating an array of oligonucleotides of chosen monomeric unit length within discrete cells or regions of a support material. The in situ method generally described for oligo- or polynucleotide synthesis involves: coupling a nucleotide precursor to a discrete predetermined set of cell locations or regions; coupling a nucleotide precursor to a second set of cell locations or regions; coupling a nucleotide precursor to a third set of cell locations or regions; and continuing the sequence of coupling steps until the desired array has been generated. Covalent linking is effected at each location either to the surface of the support or to a nucleotide coupled in a previous step.
The ""637 and ""270 patents also teach that impermeable substrates are preferable to permeable substrates, such as paper, for effecting high combinatorial site densities, because the fluid volumes required will result in migration or wicking through a permeable substrate, precluding attainment of the small feature sizes required for high densities (such as those that are attainable by parallel photolithographic synthesis, which requires a substrate that is optically smooth and generally also impermeable; see U.S. Pat. No. 5,744,305 to Fodor et al.). As the inkjet printing method is a parallel synthesis technique that requires the array to be xe2x80x9cpredeterminedxe2x80x9d in nature, and therefore inflexible, and does not enable feature sites in the micron range or smaller, there remains a need in the art for a non-photolithographic in situ combinatorial array preparation method that can provide the high densities attainable by photolithographic arrays, a feat that requires small volumes of reagents and a highly accurate deposition method, without the inflexibility of a highly parallel process that requires a predetermined site sequence. Also, as permeable substrates offer a greater surface area for localization of array constituents, a method of effecting combinatorial high density arrays non-photolithographically by delivery of sufficiently small volumes to permit use of permeable substrates is also an advance over the current state of the art of array making.
As explained above, the parallel photolithographic in situ formation of biomolecular arrays of high density, e.g., oligonucleotide or polynucleotide arrays, is also known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,744,305 and 5,445,934 to Fodor et al. describe arrays of oligonucleotides and polynucleotides attached to a surface of a planar nonporous solid support at a density exceeding 400 and 1000 different oligonucleotides/cm2 respectively. The arrays are generated using light-directed, spatially addressable synthesis techniques (see also U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,143,854 and 5,405,783, and International Patent Publication No. WO 90/15070). With respect to these photolithographic parallel in situ synthesized microarrays, Fodor et al. have developed photolabile nucleoside and peptide protecting groups, and masking and automation techniques; see U.S. Pat. No. 5,489,678 and International Patent Publication No. WO 92/10092).
The aforementioned patents disclose that photolithographic techniques commonly used in semiconductor fabrication may be applied in the fabrication of arrays of high density. Photolithographic in situ synthesis is best for parallel synthesis, requiring an inordinate number of masking steps to effect a sequential in situ combinatorial array synthesis. Even the parallel combinatorial array synthesis employing a minimized number of masking steps employs a significant number of such steps, which increases for each monomeric unit added in the synthesis. Further, the parallel photolithographic in situ array synthesis is inflexible and requires a predetermined mask sequence.
Because photolithographic fabrication requires a large number of masking steps, the yield for this process is lowered relative to a non-photolithographic in situ synthesis by the failure to block and/or inappropriate photo-deblocking by some of the photolabile protective groups. These problems with photolabile protective groups compound the practical yield problem for multi-step in situ syntheses in general by adding photochemical steps to the synthetic process. The problems have not been addressed by the advances made in the art of making and using such photolabile blockers for in situ synthesis, in part because some photolabile blocking groups are shielded from the light or xe2x80x9cburiedxe2x80x9d by the polymer on which they reside, an effect exacerbated with increasing polymer length. Therefore, the purity of the desired product is low, as the array will contain significant impurities of undesired products that can reduce both sensitivity and selectivity.
As the photolithographic process for in situ synthesis defines site edges with mask lines, mask imperfections and misalignment, diffractive effects and perturbations of the optical smoothness of the substrate can combine to reduce purity by generating polymers similar in sequence and/or structure to the desired polymer as impurities, a problem that becomes more pronounced at the site edges. This is exacerbated when photolithographic protocols attempt to maximize site density by creating arrays that have abutting sites. Because the likelihood of a mask imperfection or misalignment increases with the number of masking steps and the associated number of masks, these edge effects are worsened by an increased number of masking steps and utilization of more mask patterns to fabricate a particular array. Site impurity, i.e., generation of polymers similar in sequence and/or structure to the desired polymer, leads to reduced sensitivity and selectivity for arrays designed to analyze a nucleotide sequence.
Some efforts have been directed to adapting printing technologies, particularly, inkjet printing technologies, to form biomolecular arrays. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,015,880 to Baldeschwieler et al. is directed to array preparation using a multistep in situ synthesis. A liquid microdrop containing a first reagent is applied by a single jet of a multiple jet reagent dispenser to a locus on the surface chemically prepared to permit covalent attachment of the reagent. The reagent dispenser is then displaced relative to the surface, or the surface is displaced with respect to the dispenser, and at least one microdrop containing either the first reagent or a second reagent from another dispenser jet is applied to a second substrate locale, which is also chemically activated to be reactive for covalent attachment of the second reagent. Optionally, the second step is repeated using either the first or second reagents, or different liquid-borne reagents from different dispenser jets, wherein each reagent covalently attaches to the substrate surface. The patent discloses that inkjet technology may be used to apply the microdrops.
Ordinary inkjet technology, however, suffers from a number of drawbacks. Often, inkjet technology involves heating or using a piezoelectric element to force a fluid through a nozzle in order to direct the ejected fluid onto a surface. Thus, the fluid may be exposed to a surface exceeding 200xc2x0 C. before being ejected, and most, if not all, peptidic molecules, including proteins, degrade under such extreme temperatures. In addition, forcing peptidic molecules through nozzles creates shear forces that can alter molecular structure. Nozzles are subject to clogging, especially when used to eject a macromolecule-containing fluid, and the use of elevated temperatures exacerbates the problem because liquid evaporation results in deposition of precipitated solids on the nozzles. Clogged nozzles, in turn, can result in misdirected fluid or ejection of improperly sized droplets. Finally, ordinary inkjet technology employing a nozzle for fluid ejection generally cannot be used to deposit arrays with feature densities comparable to those obtainable using photolithography or other techniques commonly used in semiconductor processing.
A number of patents have described the use of acoustic energy in printing. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,308,547 to Lovelady et al. describes a liquid drop emitter that utilizes acoustic principles in ejecting droplets from a body of liquid onto a moving document to form characters or bar codes thereon. A nozzleless inkjet printing apparatus is used wherein controlled drops of ink are propelled by an acoustical force produced by a curved transducer at or below the surface of the ink. In contrast to inkjet printing devices, nozzleless fluid ejection devices described in the aforementioned patent are not subject to clogging and the disadvantages associated therewith, e.g., misdirected fluid or improperly sized droplets.
The applicability of nozzleless fluid ejection has generally been appreciated for ink printing applications. Development of ink printing applications is primarily economically driven by printing cost and speed for acceptable text. For acoustic printing, development efforts have therefore focused on reducing printing costs rather than improving quality, and on increasing printing speed rather than accuracy. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,087,931 to Rawson is directed to a system for transporting ink under constant flow to an acoustic ink printer having a plurality of ejectors aligned along an axis, each ejector associated with a free surface of liquid ink. When a plurality of ejectors is used instead of a single ejector, printing speed generally increases, but controlling fluid ejection, specifically droplet placement, becomes more difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,797,693 to Quate describes an acoustic ink printer for printing polychromatic images on a recording medium. The printer is described as comprising a combination of a carrier containing a plurality of differently colored liquid inks, a single acoustic printhead acoustically coupled to the carrier for launching converging acoustic waves into the carrier, an ink transport means to position the carrier to sequentially align the differently colored inks with the printhead, and a controller to modulate the radiation pressure used to eject ink droplets. This printer is described as designed for the realization of cost savings. Because two droplets of primary color, e.g., cyan and yellow, deposited in sufficient proximity will appear as a composite or secondary color, the level of accuracy required is fairly low and inadequate for biomolecular array formation. Such a printer is particularly unsuitable for in situ synthesis requiring precise droplet deposition and consistent placement, so that the proper chemical reactions occur. That is, the drop placement accuracy needed to effect perception of a composite secondary color is much lower than is required for chemical synthesis at photolithographic density levels. Consequently, an acoustic printing device that is suitable for printing visually apprehensible material is inadequate for microarray preparation. Also, this device can eject only a limited quantity of ink from the carrier before the liquid meniscus moves out of acoustic focus and drop ejection ceases. This is a significant limitation with biological fluids, which are typically far more costly and rare than ink. The Quate et al. patent does not address how to use most of the fluid in a closed reservoir without adding additional liquid from an external source.
Thus, there is a general need in the art for improved array preparation methodology. An ideal array preparation technique would provide for highly accurate deposition of minute volumes of fluids on a substrate surface, wherein droplet volume-and thus xe2x80x9cspotxe2x80x9d size on the substrate surfacexe2x80x94can be carefully controlled and droplets can be precisely directed to particular sites on a substrate surface. It would also be optimal if such a technique could be used with porous or even permeable surfaces, as such surfaces can provide substantially greater surface area on which to attach molecular moieties that serve as array elements, and would enable preparation of higher density arrays. To date, as alluded to above, high density arrays have been prepared only on nonporous, impermeable surfaces, and only low density arrays could be prepared on porous surfaces.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide devices and methods that address the aforementioned need in the art.
In one aspect of the invention, a device is provided for acoustically ejecting a plurality of fluid droplets toward discrete sites on a substrate surface for deposition thereon, the device comprising: a plurality of reservoirs each adapted to contain a fluid; an acoustic ejector comprising an acoustic radiation generator for generating acoustic radiation and a focusing means for focusing the acoustic radiation at a focal point sufficiently near the fluid surface in each of the reservoirs such that a droplet is ejected therefrom; and a means for positioning the ejector in acoustic coupling relationship to each of the reservoirs. Preferably, each of the reservoirs is removable, comprised of an individual well in a well plate, and/or arranged in an array. In addition, it is preferred that the reservoirs are substantially acoustically indistinguishable from one another.
In another aspect, the invention relates to a method for ejecting fluids from fluid reservoirs toward discrete sites on a substrate surface for deposition thereon. The method involves positioning an acoustic ejector so as to be in acoustically coupled relationship with a fluid-containing reservoir containing a first fluid, and then activating the ejector to generate and direct acoustic radiation into the fluid so as to eject a fluid droplet toward a site on the substrate surface. Then, the ejector is repositioned so as to be in acoustically coupled relationship with a second fluid-containing reservoir and activated again as above to eject a droplet of the second fluid toward a second site on the substrate surface, wherein the first and second sites may or may not be the same. If desired, the method may be repeated with a plurality of fluid reservoirs each containing a fluid, with each reservoir generally although not necessarily containing a different fluid. The acoustic ejector is thus repeatedly repositioned so as to eject a droplet from each reservoir toward a different site on a substrate surface, or toward sites that already have a droplet xe2x80x9cspotxe2x80x9d thereon. In such a way, the method is readily adapted for use in generating an array of molecular moieties on a substrate surface.
Yet another aspect of the invention provides high density arrays of various chemical compounds or materials on a substrate surface. The present focused acoustic ejection methodology enables preparation of arrays comprised of at least 62,500 chemical entities (i.e., array elements) per square centimeter of substrate surface, preferably at least 250,000, more preferably at least 1,000,000, and most preferably at least 1,500,000 elements per square centimeter of substrate surface. These arrays do not possess the edge effects that result from optical and alignment effects of photolithographic masking, nor are they subject to imperfect spotting alignment from inkjet nozzle-directed deposition of reagents.